Editorial September 28, 1968 Issue

What Are We Entertaining?

Helen Wood Bauman

Until people understand the distinction made by Christian Science between the material sense of existence and the spiritual sense of it, the sense which is native to God's man, His image, their efforts to heal spiritually are certain to be ineffective. The fact is that material sense produces the very sickness it suffers from; and a mental sense that produces illness by believing in it or fearing it cannot be expected to cure that illness. Only spiritual sense, which knows God and His harmony alone, has power to dispel the false mental sense that experiences inharmony.

To heal disease we must understand what it is—not a condition of matter but a spurious state of thought. And we must be certain that it can be obliterated because it is false. Mary Baker Eddy explains in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "Disease is always induced by a false sense mentally entertained, not destroyed."^{Science and Health, p. 411;} To doctor symptoms is a superficial approach to the healing of disease, whatever method is employed. The way of Christian Science is to work in depth by destroying the false sense that is being mentally entertained. The divine sense of existence, the real and true sense of life, knows no disorder or discomfort or disease.

It is a relief to realize that a seemingly physical condition is actually a mental state, a relief because we can always correct our thoughts. Seeing sickness in thought instead of in flesh is a forward step to take in the overcoming of sickness. We can destroy the "false sense mentally entertained" by being so Christly, so imbued with love and truthfulness and the consciousness of God and His allness, that the sense of sickness can no longer claim presence or reality in human thought or body. Health and strength are certain to accompany Christliness.

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